By the end of
the 20th century, the entertainment industry has proven to be one of the
most influential industries on society. Entertainment currently dominates
society -- it is present everywhere. The 20th century first-world citizen
cannot claim it suffers from "too much work and no play." People are
entertained all day long, through every single media; radio, television,
film, audio, video, computers, internet, and print. If any place in the
world is famed for being the center of the entertainment industry in the
20th century, it is Times Square, having had the highest concentration of
entertainment industries. This essay is about Times Square, how it came into
existence, how it flourished, how it fell from grace, and how it is
currently being rebuilt. The text is divided into three parts.

The first part documents the "rise and fall" of Times Square as the
entertainment capital. Times Square became Times Square on April 9,
1904, when Longacre Square was renamed after the arrival of the New York
Times headquarters on the triangle between Broadway, 42nd Street and 7th
Avenue. The area arose as a cultural factory in the early 20th century,
and for many years remained the central marketplace for commercial
culture in the US. Infrastructure, land-use policies and other factors
caused the theatre and entertainment industries to cluster around what
later would be called the "crossroads of the world." 1 Amusements from
the newly invented theme park even found their way to the area,
democratizing the theatre. The excessive use of illuminated outdoor
advertising earned Broadway the name of the "Great White Way." Times
Square became one of the most frequently visited places by tourists,
drawn to the unprecedented commercial grandeur. Following the
introduction of movies (and "talkies") the area served as the nation's
center for motion pictures for some time. The ever-present sex industry
in Times Square eventually became dominant, followed by increasing
violence and drug use in the latter half of the century.

The second part looks more closely at the development of the amusement
parks on Coney Island, and the subsequent arrival of amusement-park
entertainment in the Times Square area. Originating from remnants of the
great expositions of the 18th century, the Coney Island amusement parks
became the first permanent mass entertainment. When two entrepreneurs
from Coney Island zeroed in on Manhattan, theatre and Times Square would
never be the same again.

The third and final part discusses the current developments of Times
Square, following decades of urban decay. After a long period of failed
attempts the area is being rebuilt. One of the major components of the
new scheme is the insertion of Disney as part of the urban
revitalization. In more ways than one, history is being recreated in the
area.

NOTES
1. Lying in the heart of midtown Manhattan, the area currently attracts 20
million tourists each year. "Of the 500,000 people who pass through the
Times Square subway complex each day, 250,000 walk through Times square
on their way to or from the trains, contributing to the neighborhood's
daily pedestrian count of 1.5 million." - Erika Rosenfeld, Times Square,
Times Square Business Improvement District publicity brochure, New York
1994 ; IMAGES: Times Square, postca rd. Photo: N.Y. Convention and
Visitors Bureau

PART ONE: CREATING TIMES SQUARE

It was no coincidence that Times Square became the great American
marketplace for commercial culture in the first decades of the 20th
century. Several conditions determined the location of what would become
the "crossroads of the world."

New York City had been for over a century the great center of
information circulation and the center for commerce with Europe. The
volume of imported and exported goods passing through the city's port
had grown rapidly throughout the 19th century, and New York moved far
ahead of its rivals, Boston and Philadelphia, in the import and export
of fashions, design, and ideas. This was also tied to the shift in
manufacturing that occurred between 1870 and 1900. While heavy
manufacturing moved towards the sources of raw materials, the industries
related to the production of cultural goods had to stay close to its
customers, in order to keep up with the latest fashions. Publishers,
manufacturers of women's clothing and all sorts of luxury goods
continued to flourish in the metropolis. With its enormous and widely
varied population, New York formed an unmatched marketplace and provider
of any conceivable service or supply.2

Transportation & Infrastructure
Economic and political conditions brought the market to midtown Manhattan.
Midtown was by 1918 the center of a complex web of local and national
transportation networks, bringing people of all classes, trades and
places to a single area. A long period of economic and political
decision-making had centered the different transportation networks
around mid-Manhattan. The location of the market for commercial culture
in that district became a by-product of these decisions. Grand Central
Station, at 42nd street and 4th (now Park) Avenue began as a railyard in
1840, and was frequently enlarged until 1913. Elevated railroads ran
over the city streets from the 1870s, but provided slow and dirty
transportation. This changed with the introduction of the subway, the
first line of which ran underneath a substantial length of Manhattan
island. In 1857 a ban was placed on steam-powered locomotives below 42nd
street to control smoke and fire pollution, forcing The Grand Central
Station to be built at that point. These decisions -- and many others at
the time -- had been made by the politically powerful economic elite to
protect and serve the city’s chief business and residential districts.
The intertwining of the various transit services made 42nd street in the
decades to follow one of midtown’s most important cross-streets. Times
Square became a key point as intersection of the elevated and subway
lines.3

While owners of already-developed property sought to keep the transit
facilities out of their neighborhoods, owners of less developed property
lobbied for the opposite, arguing that the absence of adequate transit
was unfairly holding their district back. The multiple subway lines met
the needs of several key economic interest groups, and accommodated
others by avoiding the avenues and boulevards they wished to protect.
That the subway gave a great locational advantage to Times Square, at a
time when theatrical entrepreneurs were on the move, was incidental.

Land-use Policies & the Garment Industry
National political and economic forces brought the market for commercial
culture to New York City; local transportation resolutions brought it to
mid-Manhattan. Land-use laws, such as the 1916 Zoning Resolution, pushed
the related businesses to the Times Square area.4 Midtown Manhattan
became a major center for retailing, garment manufacture, and other
businesses following the injection of the transit networks. Especially
the garment industry grew rapidly from the 1880s. Retail stores also
grew, some emerging as vast department stores in the early 1900s.
Retailers moved up Broadway, away from the expanding financial and
government office district, in search of better access to their
customers. They were closely followed, however, by the garment
manufacturers, who wanted to minimize their own transport costs and
maximize their access to buyers. While the retail and department stores
were greatly welcomed uptown, residents of the more fashionable areas
tried to keep the manufacturers out, complaining that the industrial
look of these districts made (women) shoppers feel unsafe and
uncomfortable. The retailers of Fifth Avenue had formed the Fifth Avenue
Association, and threatened to boycott any manufacturer who located in a
loft above 34th Street. The Fifth Avenue Association and several other
business associations supported the Zoning Resolution of 1916, which
excluded industrial activities from districts designated as commercial,
and specified Fifth Avenue and Broadway as commercial districts. As
result of the Zoning Resolution and other governmental and private
incentives the industry was moved to the west side of mid-Manhattan. The
area between Broadway and Eighth Avenue and 35th and 40th Streets is
still known as the Garment District. Subsequently, the theatres in this
area began to disappear. It would have been impossible to have matinee
performances when the narrow streets were filled with the business
activities (crowds of workers, vehicular traffic, garment racks) during
the day. At the end of the nineteenth century, New York's theatres were
scattered all around the city, but many disappeared in the following 25
years. In the same period, over 80 new theatres were built in and around
Times Square. Further land-use laws pushed the theatres away from Fifth
Avenue and up to Times Square.5

The Zoning Resolution of 1916 did not create New York's garment or theatre
districts, nor did it protect these districts. The zoning regulation had
been written to reduce congestion in the city, but the congestion of the
theatre district was recognized as both a cause and effect of the
concentration of transit facilities. Property owners raised their rents,
making it impossible for the smaller theatres, with only a handful of
performances a week, to stay open. The more profitable movie houses came
in their place, showing films to larger audiences throughout the day. By
1925 many proposed theatres were combined with large office buildings
and hotels. The nearby Rockefeller Center and Radio City (with its Music
Hall) was a typical culmination of these tendencies, combining
entertainment with massive office towers.6

NOTES
2. David C. Hammack, "Developing for Commercial Culture", p.36-38,
Inventing Times Square - Commerce and Culture at the Crossroads of the
World, William R. Taylor, editor, New York 1991. Resulting from a
succession of conferences on Times Square held in 1988-89, the book
contains numerous essays describing different aspects of Times Square's
cultural history. 3. "Developing for Commercial Culture", p.38-42 4. The
1916 Zoning Law is best known for describing the bulk envelopes of
skyscrapers, resulting in the many "setback" or "wedding cake" buildings
that can be seen in midtown Manhattan. Hugh Ferriss drew the famous
renderings exploring the limits of the Zoning Law for his book
Metropolis of Tomorrow (New York, 1929). Thomas A.P. van Leeuwen
describes his scepticism of this seemingly democratic law in The Skyward
Trend of Thought, (Den Haag, 1986). Aside from legislating the growth of
buildings in the commercial districts, it regulated land-use for
Manhattan. 5. "Developing for Commercial Culture", p.42-45 6.
"Developing for Commercial Culture", p.49-50 ; IMAGES: Times Tower,
postcard c. 1904; Times Square, postcard, date unknown

URBAN TOURISM

Another important link in the chain of events that helped create Times
Square was the birth of the American urban tourist in the early
twentieth century. During this time, cities became aware of themselves
as tourist attractions, and effectively turned it into a flourishing
business.

Many tourists visiting New York were drawn specifically to and
stimulated by business, by merchandisers, both as a consumer and a
visitor. In the late 19th century, Americans had learned from the
well-organized Swiss, who welcomed over three million visitors each
year, how to become successful hosts. Switzerland's prosperity was based
on the self-conscious development of foreign tourism, which had been
turned into a distinct profession.7

The fierce competition among the American cities to host the Columbian
Exposition of 1893, indicated awareness of the economic benefits that
could be obtained by the winner. The Columbian Exposition demonstrated
as one of the first in the US, a tight co-ordination between
hotelkeepers, railroad managers, publishers and city officials to ensure
that a huge mass of visitors could be moved around, housed, fed and
entertained in an efficient as well as a profitable manner.8

Meanwhile, a world-wide "competition of capitals" was taking place, and
the great fairs temporarily provided a landscape worthy of comparison
with the great European capitals. Urban planners promoted that urban
beautification could benefit behavior, civic pride, political morals,
real estate values, business efficiency, and tourism. The City Beautiful
movement ensued, and many cities turned to the serious business of
creating a permanent exposition of civic structures, museums, and public
squares. 9 In his presentation of his 1909 Chicago Plan, Daniel Burnham
noted that "People from all over the world visit and linger in Paris. No
matter where they make their money, they go there to spend it. . . . The
cream of our earnings should be spent here . . . while the city should
become a magnet, drawing to us those who wish to enjoy life." He
continued to say that "our own people will become home-keepers, and the
stranger will seek our gates."10

New York, in the 1890s, was already the most visited place in the country,
containing numerous 'places of interest.' The Statue of Liberty, the
Brooklyn Bridge and the city's great park that held two major museums
and a zoo, had all appeared within the last two decades. New York hosted
and exploited several mass-celebrations starting from 1885, attracting
millions of visitors. The city increasingly became a center for
conventions, trade associations, and shopping trips. The city became
dominated by strangers, stirring up a mixture of reactions from New
Yorkers. Some tourists headed for the traditional uplifting sights --
museums, monuments, parks, churches, and libraries. But many more were
drawn to the city's pleasure zones. Critics worried about the
experiences of these tourists, and complained about the wrong image that
New York might suffer. A whole market evolved around the rich visitors,
who could afford lavish tips and high prices. However, "The stranger's
New York is a surface New York," a writer for Outlook magazine noted.11
This was a comfort that even the humblest New Yorker could take, who was
locked out by the lavish pleasures, but was knowledgeable and blasé
about things that took the breath away of the ill-behaved
out-of-towners.

The Times Square area, or the Tenderloin as it was more commonly known in
the early 1900s, was viewed as an expensive, isolated tourist center
congested with nightclubs, theatres, hotels, and restaurants. Robert
Shackleton wrote that the average tourist was probably respectable
enough at his home in some distant city, "but on Broadway he is likely
to get a fifty cent cigar between his teeth and fling extravagant tips,
and become arrogant and boastful, and make it clear 'he has the price.'
It is this class of men who, inviting and receiving the attentions of
swindlers and robbers and sharpers, gets into police courts and gives
New York more of a reputation for wickedness than it deserves."
Shackleton noted that "A great part of the people who move along the
'Great White Way' are not New Yorkers, but visitors,"12 while Harper's
Weekly had pointed out that the so-called New York theatre audience was
not local at all. Contemporary journalist Julian Street wrote a series
of articles on the Tenderloin, and remarked that the natives looked
"with pity and amusement at those who are not of it." He continued to
say that "They [the visitors] stare at New York as a New Yorker stares
at Coney Island. For New York is, after all, the Coney Island of the
nation."13

Theatre and music industry
Theatre at the end of the 19th century can best be described as the
television of its day. Live performance was the dominant form of
entertainment, and also very profitable. Numerous entrepreneurs helped
create public demand for new forms of entertainment, combining financial
cleverness with a remarkable sensitivity to new markets and changing
public tastes. New York had become the starting point for touring
theatre shows, which had grown in popularity since its introduction in
the 1860s. Helped by the expansion of the nation's railroad network,
companies of actors appearing in a single show travelled from city to
city, providing its own music, costumes, and scenery. Since New York was
already being regarded as the theatre-capital, it is not surprising that
it became the headquarters for the touring companies. In 1904 over 400
theatrical companies toured the nation. Times Square was soon dominated
by the theatre industry; rehearsal halls, offices of theatrical agents
and producers, headquarters of scenery, costume, lighting and makeup
companies, theatrical printers and newspapers were concentrated in the
area, in addition to the many theatres that displayed the shows before
they went on tour. In a few years, New York had more theatres than it
really needed, but its expansion continued. In 1910, there were 34
theatres, most of them new, and most of them in the Times Square area.
In the 1919-20 and 1929-30 seasons, 50 and respectively 71 playhouses
were operating in New York, nearly all of which in Times Square.14

Other entertainment industries that proliferated in the Times Square area
were the publishers of sheet music and, for a short time, the production
of radio shows. The song-writing and sheet music market were
particularly big in the first third of the century. The music industry
was then commonly known as "Tin Pan Alley", after Monroe Rosenfeld’s
song describing the cacaphonic sound of the area. One of the most
successful songwriters of Tin Pan Alley was Irving Berlin, who owned his
own publishing firm, and is perhaps best known for his songs Puttin' on
the Ritz and White Christmas.15

Movie industry
From around 1910, movies were changing the market and the face of Times
Square. Vaudeville houses began incorporating movies into their
programs, and moviemakers expanded their offices in the area.16 The
Victoria Theatre, the greatest of all vaudeville houses, was torn down
to make way for a new movie palace, the Rialto. Theatrical producers
shifted their attention from roadshows to developing scripts that could
later be sold to movie producers. The number of road companies and
legitimate theatres in the US quickly declined between 1910 and 1925,
but the number of theatres in Times Square continued to grow, driven by
the prospect of selling material to the movies and the vast available
audience. The rise of the movies brought many larger theatres, movie
palaces and a host of related businesses to the area. Many production
companies first produced live shows in their own theatres, then made
them into films. Movie producers held their first screenings in Times
Square, with its unparalleled access to mass audiences and to the
metropolitan and theatre press. Many of these businesses soon moved to
Hollywood, although many remained in Times Square because New York
continued to provide much of the talent—as well as most of the
capital—for the new industry.17

Sex industry
Although generally believed to have moved in after Times Square's golden
age, commercial sex had always been around the area.

Entertainment and prostitution moved into the area after the 1850s, when
industrialization in lower Manhattan forced the less profitable land
uses uptown. Only a few decades before, the area northwest of Longacre
Square had been developed as an elite residential area. Wealthy New
Yorkers quickly abandoned their well-built brownstones as commerce and
entertainment made the area undesirable. By the early 1880s, many of
these brownstones functioned as brothels and "parlor houses". Within a
few years, prostitutes were a prominent and visible part of the 42nd
street community. In the early 1900s, prostitutes paraded up and down
Broadway between 27th and 68th street; observers noted that "ten to
twenty prostitutes" were "seen nightly on every block."18 Meanwhile, the
"sporting male" culture, celebrating male heterosexual sexual activity,
had grown more popular and more public. Men of all classes enjoyed the
personal freedom, promiscuity, extramarital sex, and physical isolation
from the nation's strict Victorian lifestyle that the Tenderloin
offered. The displays of heavy drinking, street gangs, sexual
aggression, and prizefight boxing in combination with the high amount of
sexual services being offered, characterized the sporting male culture.
Prostitution became an accepted part of city life, since there was
little that could be done against it. As it was being tolerated, many
sporting males felt no compulsion to conceal their behavior.19

"As everyone knows," a former police chief concluded in 1906, "the city
is being rebuilt, and vice moves ahead of business."20 Indeed, many
recognized a strong business enterprise in the organization of
commercial sex in the city. The French syndicate even recruited French
prostitutes abroad, and Tenderloin brothels made impressive profits,
averaging to $25,000 annually. After the passing of the Raines Law,
however, the brothels declined in popularity, and hotels became the most
profitable habitats of prostitutes. The Raines Law had been passed to
prevent liquor sales in saloons on Sunday, but it was legal to sell
drinks in hotels with ten or more rooms. As a result, many saloonkeepers
opened up hotels, adding thousands of new bedrooms to Manhattan, most of
them permanently occupied by prostitutes.21

Needless to say, not everyone tolerated the course of actions. As the
police became regarded as corrupt and ineffective against commercial
sex, numerous reform organizations began to appear. Fearing the historic
association of the theatre with prostitution, the Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Children successfully lobbied for a child
exhibition law that restricted the stage activities of children under
the age of 16. In 1897, the Forty-fourth Street Property Owners
Association (with the help of the police) were able to close the
prostitute-infested Sixth Avenue Hotel. Crime fighting and law
enforcement regarding sexual activity noticeably changed with the
success and aid of the Committees of Fourteen and Fifteen in the early
1900s.22 Police policy shifted from moral control to more serious crime,
leaving the regulation of sexuality to the private reform bodies. The
Committee of Fourteen became known for the most successful
anti-prostitution campaign in the city’s history. In 1905, the
organization succeeded in passing the Ambler Law, which eliminated the
majority of the so-called Raines Law hotels.23 Furthermore, the
Committee restricted the marketplace of prostitutes; property owners
renting to prostitutes and saloons permitting solicitation were
criminalized.

Similar organizations, meanwhile, were battling against immoral
performances on the theatre stages. Shows such as George Bernard Shaw's
Mrs. Warren's Profession and Richard Strauss' Salome were both closed
after a single performance.24

By World War I, the Times Square area had visibly changed. The red lights
had been replaced by the theatre's white lights, dubbing Broadway as the
'Great White Way'. Where once the elite institutions of culture existed
alongside the elements of the sexual underworld, now served as the
entertainment center for the masses; young and old, male and female,
resident and visitor. References to the neighborhood as the Tenderloin
declined, replaced by its official name, Times Square.

Nonetheless, Times Square remained the venue providing exclusive adult
shows and entertainment. Theatres continued to produce shows with erotic
appeal, clearly to the audience’s taste, but were continually attacked
by the private reform bodies. In a "Salon des Arts", visitors could view
thirty nude paintings, and watch artists in smock and beret produce
fresh masterpieces from the nude model on display. The Hubert's Museum,
which replaced the famous Murray's Roman Gardens after its downfall
during the Prohibition, specialized in freaks, bizarre acts, and a flea
circus, also displayed an exhibition of "Hidden Secrets" of sex,
courtesy of the "French Academy of Medicine, Paris."25

While the reform organizations had succeeded in disorganizing the sexual
underground economy in the 1910s, prostitution was never eliminated from
the area. Prostitution continued to exist around Times Square, albeit
more camouflaged. Hotels were required by police to secure the names of
male customers with no baggage, as well as prove that the women with
them were their wives. Prostitutes were forced to rely on bellboys,
waiters, taxi drivers and pimps to recruit customers. Many became call
girls, while some even worked out of taxis.

As prostitution in Times Square became less public after 1920, law
enforcement turned to the increasing homosexual activity in the area.
The theatrical milieu had drawn many gays to the area, offering jobs in
restaurants, clubs, hotels, the theatre industry, and more tolerance
than most workplaces. Homosexuality was judged by people who were
themselves often marginalized because of the unconventional lives they
led as theatre workers. Some men could be openly gay among their
co-workers, while the eccentricity of artistic and theatre people
provided a cover for men adopting gay styles in their dress and
behavior. Gay men met at most of the district's restaurants, some
becoming predominantly gay and developing a mild gay ambiance.26

Surprisingly, these restaurants and "speakeasies" proliferated and
became more secure during the Prohibition.27 All speakeasies, gay and
straight, had to bribe the authorities and warn their customers to be
prepared to hide what they were doing at a moment's notice. The popular
opposition to enforcement and the development of criminal syndicates
protecting the speakeasies, made it easier for the gay clubs to survive,
since they stood out less.

Visiting Times Square became more of a theatrical experience itself as
"fairies" and male prostitutes took to the streets, becoming part of the
spectacle. In 1927, the Times Square Building was reported as being a
"hangout for fairies and go-getters" that attracted crowds of sailors.28
Although the police periodically conducted roundups of hustlers and
fairies on the street, they could not close the streets in way they
could close a bar. After the repeal of the Prohibition in 1933, gay bars
proliferated, although many were short lived, since they were once again
easy to find. The bars serving homosexuals continued to be dependent on
systematic syndicate protection, but many gays sought out more secure
venues, or places less likely to be raided. Several bars and nightclubs
tolerated or even welcomed gays, so long as they remained discreet. Gay
men developed a number of codes to covertly alert each other to their
identities in public; by wearing certain clothes, introducing certain
topics of conversation, and using code words they could carry on
extensive and highly informative conversations whose real significance
would remain unknown to the people around them.29 As a result, the bar
of the Astor Hotel maintained its public reputation as a respectable
Times Square rendezvous, while its reputation as a gay rendezvous and
pickup bar assumed legendary proportions in the gay world. Similarly, on
some nights, the Metropolitan Opera on Broadway at 40th Street, became
the "biggest bar in town."

By the late 1930s, the Depression had hit hard upon Times Square. The
once-elegant restaurants had been replaced by cheap luncheonettes, and
crime kept many visitors away from the area's hotels. Meanwhile, Times
Square's white prostitutes were now known as almost the cheapest in the
city. Many of the legitimate theatres had turned into movie houses.

Commercial sex became once again visible in the area with World War II. As
servicemen flooded into Times Square, so did gay sexuality. After the
war, the economically supported revisions of the zoning laws in 1947 and
1954 did little to halt what many writers have called the downward slide
of Times Square. From the new zoning laws, adult cinemas and "dirty
bookshops" emerged in the area, selling souvenirs over the counter, and
pornography in the backroom. The sensational press reported that gays
and streetwalkers were more abundant and more conspicuous in their
abundance than ever before. In 1959, crime was low in the area with only
four drug arrests, no brothels, and only one legitimate nightclub. Male
hustlers were mostly seen on 42nd Street between 7th and 8th Avenues,
yet most arrests of males in Times Square in the fifties were for
brawling.30

The 1960s brought an enlarged drug trade to the area, and with it the
elements of crime and violence. The libertarianism of the sixties caused
a boom in the already established sex business. Peepshows, massage
parlors, "adult" bookstores and -moviehouses, and prostitution quickly
became the dominant features of the area, continuing to do so for the
next two decades.

NOTES
14. Margaret Knapp, Introductory essay to section II of Inventing Times
Square, entitled "Entertainment and Commerce," p.121-122; David C.
Hammack, "Developing for Commercial Culture", p.45-48 15. Philip Furia,
“Irving Berlin: Troubadour of Tin Pan Alley”, Inventing Times square,
p.191-211 16. "Vaudeville first appeared in the 1880s. Composed of
seperate acts strung together to make a complete bill, it was the direct
descendant of mid-nineteenth century variety theatre, which had often
catered to carousing middle- and working-class men in saloons and music
halls. To attract these men's wives and families, creating a wider and
more lucrative audience, entrepreneurs banned liquor from their houses.
They censored some of their bawdy acts -- or at least promised to. They
jettisoned the older name of variety, with its stigma of vice and
alcohol, and adopted the classier sounding name of vaudeville." Robert
W. Snyder, "Vaudeville and the Transformation of Popular Culture,"
Inventing Times Square, p.134 17. "Developing for Commercial Culture"”,
p.48-49 18. Times (July 21, 1907); Timothy J. Gilfoyle, “Policing of
Sexuality”, Inventing Times Square, p.300 19. "Policing of Sexuality",
p.301, 303-304 20. William McAdoo, Guarding a Great City, New York 1906;
"Policing of Sexuality", p. 299 21. "Policing of Sexuality", p.305-306,
307, 311-312; Laurence Senelick, "Private Parts in Public Places,"
Inventing Times Square, p.331 22. "Policing of Sexuality", p.306-314 23.
"The Ambler Law required hotels built after 1891 and over 35 feet high
to be fireproof with walls 3 inches thick, rooms at least 30 square
feet, and doors opening onto hallways, thus eliminating most Raines Laws
hotels." Note from "Policing of Sexuality", p.307 24. "Policing of
Sexuality", p.310. Numerous other shows were battled for their content,
and reform bodies succeeded in closing many. Often, fines and short jail
terms were imposed on the authors, producers and actors. The list of
banned plays from the 1920s and 1930s includes Damaged Goods, The God of
Vengeance, The Demi-Virgin, Topics of 1923, Artists and Models, The
Captive, Sex, The Virgin Man, Maya, The Shanghai Gesture, and Pleasure
Man. see "Private Parts in Public Places," p.334-335 25. "Private Parts
in Public Places", p.332 26. George Chauncy, Jr., "The Policed: Gay
Men's Strategies of Everyday Resistance," Inventing Times Square,
p.317-318 27. "Speakeasy" was the contemporary word for cafe or bar,
particularly during the Prohibition, when they provided illegal liquor.
28. Miscellaneous Report, March 2, 1927, Box 36, C14P, New York;
"Policing of Sexuality", p.313 29. The word "gay" itself was such a code
word in the 1930s and 1940s. 30. "Private Parts in Public Places",
p.339-340 ; IMAGES: Houses of Prostitution in Longacre Square: 1901,
from "Policing of Sexuality," p.300; "Speako de Luxe," a speakeasy at
Washington Square, lithograph by Joseph Webster Golinkin, 1933; Jerry E.
Patterson, The City of New York, New York 1978

PART THREE: REBUILDING TIMES SQUARE
While Times Square continued to deteriorate throughout the 1960s into the
1980s, large scale redevelopments were being devised by the city. Most
of these schemes folded, or some proved unsuccessful. The Marriott
Marquis Hotel finally opened in 1985 more than ten years after its
initial proposal, promising an infusion of new life and capital in the
area. Instead, it had destroyed two theatres and had placed blank
concrete sides at street level.1

In 1984 the city presented the 42nd Street Development Project, a
subsidiary of the New York State Urban Development Corporation (UDC),
assigned to "reclaim" the area from clutches of crime and degradation.
Being the largest development effort ever undertaken by the State and
City of New York, and one of the largest urban renewal programs launched
in the US, it covers a 13-acre area directly around the stretch of 42nd
Street between 7th and 8th Avenues, commonly known as "the Deuce." The
Times Square envisioned in the 1984 plan, consisted of four skyscrapers
around the intersection of Broadway and 42nd Street, revitalized
theatres and a hotel and shopping mall on 8th avenue.2 The subsequent
designs for the office towers presented by Philip Johnson and John
Burgee in 1984 received such an amount of criticism, that the entire
plan was set back once again for several years. Furthermore, by the end
of the 1980s, the market for office space had collapsed, rendering the
proposed towers (for the time being) useless.3

42nd Street Now!
The impatience for urban renewal is reflected in the name of the interim
plan that was presented in 1993; the "42nd Street Now!" project will
"ensure a rapid vitalization" of the area.4 UDC hired a creative team
consisting of graphic designers, lighting consultants, and architects,
amongst which Robert A.M. Stern, to draft a short-term plan that would
fit the area and attract investors. The plan focuses on creating a
highly varied mix of retail, eating and drinking establishments, tourist
attractions and entertainment. The sketches of the soon-to-be 42nd
Street depict an strongly enhanced version of itself; old and new
architecture juxtaposed, mixed and layered with illuminating signage
intensify the collective memory of Times Square. The signage is a very
serious part of the design guidelines; reports of the 42nd Street
Development Project continually note that the signage is Times Square's
major tourist attraction.5

The interim plan has proven to be a useful publicity tool. Despite the
claim that the renewed 42nd Street will not be "a gentrified theme-park
or festival market,"6 it owes much of its support to theme park giant
Disney. After several months of negotiations between the city and Walt
Disney Inc., the latter announced in early 1994, that it would
rehabilitate and reopen the landmark New Amsterdam theatre on 42nd
Street. The deal called for the city and state to lend Disney $21
million at 3 percent interest, while Disney itself spent $8 million of
its own to renovate the theatre. Politician hailed the announcement,
like Governor Mario M. Cuomo, who said "You're going to get rid of the
filth." According to other reports, however, this had been Disney's own
demand to the city before jumping in on the project in the first place.7
A new zoning law, going into effect in the fall of 1996, orders the
removal of residences, churches, schools and sex related businesses from
the area.

Following Disney's agreement and the passing of the zoning law,
hesitation towards the project from other leading entertainment
companies soon disappeared. In the same year six major hotel chains,
including Hilton Hotels, Marriott Corp. and the Walt Disney Co.,
submitted plans for the proposed hotel at the northeast corner of 42nd
Street and 8th Avenue. Along with the proposals by the hotel chains,
several other smaller companies, including restaurant concerns and
theatre operators, submitted proposals to establish businesses within
whatever is built on the site. For the final round of the design
competition in february of 1995, designs from Michael Graves, Zaha Hadid
and Arquitectonica were submitted, with the latter being approved for
construction. In September of 1994, MTV declared its interest in turning
three of the theatres on 42nd Street (including the Lyric theatre, the
place Robert de Niro in Taxi Driver dragged Cybill Shepherd to see
Swedish Marriage Manual), into an MTV Studio Complex, directly across
the street from Disney's New Amsterdam. The list of well-known
entertainment companies with big plans for Times Square continues:
Virgin Records said it would open its largest megastore on Broadway at
45th Street; Sony intends to build a high-tech movie cineplex, seating
6000; Madame Tussaud's will open its first animatronics wax museum
outside Europe.8

The 42nd Street Development Project owes its success in part to many of
the other organizations working to improve the area. In 1992 the Times
Square Business Improvement District (the BID) was established by area
businesses and community leaders to ensure make the neighborhood clean,
safe, and friendly. The BID put its own sanitation workers and public
safety officers in the street, and received $1.5 million from the Times
Square Public Purpose Fund to improve the sidewalk lighting in the
area.9 The New 42nd Street Inc., originally established as the 42nd
Street Entertainment Corporation in 1990, was given direct charge of six
of the 42nd Street theatres, which have been by the City and State.
Serving as the theatres' landlord, it was assigned to assemble and
select a mix of commercial and nonprofit tenants and operators and
furthermore promote the block's entertainment and cultural offerings.10

In much the same way as once the Luna Park formula changed the face of
Times Square, the injection of Disney should reinvent the area as the
cross-roads of the world. Disneyland is today's Luna Park, and the
similarities are manifold.

Just as Luna Park was presented as a place far away from everyday life,
Disney World (in Florida) and the Disney Lands (in California, Japan,
and France) offer a similar escape from reality. Even more than the Moon
being the destination of the Luna Park visitor, Disney is a vacation
destination of its own. Disney World even has an official airline,
Delta, a perfect symbol for its nationhood. Visitors can pay with either
regular US Dollars or with "Disney Dollars", which can be exchanged one
to one at the entrance of the park. While the Mickey Mouse money offers
no advantage or discount in any way, it adds yet another degree of
foreign-ness to the park.11

And just like Luna Park, Disney is a descendant from the great expositions
of the 19th century, derived from the industrial revolution. The 1851
Great Exposition of the Works of Industry of All Nations held in London
was the first great utopia of global capital, displaying collected
modern technologies in the first entirely prefabricated winter garden.
Later, the fairs became differentiated, consisting of thematically
arranged pavilions (manufacture, transport, science, etc.),
entertainment oriented, national, and corporate pavilions. As the fairs
grew, they also began to showcase utopian urbanism, displaying the
cities of the future in both their pavilions as in their plans. While
most of the ideas originated from Europe, America became the tabula rasa
for utopian experiments.12

Alongside the City Beautiful movement which evolved from the fairs, came
the garden city movement, promoted by the Englishman Ebenezer Howard in
Garden Cities of Tomorrow (1902). Many of the patterns originating from
the garden city have been incorporated in the layout of the Disney
Parks. In short, these ideas included a radial plan around a single
center, the separation of pedestrians and vehicles, and functions in
walking distance. The 1933 Century of Progress Exposition held in
Chicago was the first to elevate all means of movement, pre-existing the
famous Disney monorail.

Even more closely related to the World Fairs is Disney World's
Experimental Prototype Community of Tomorrow (EPCOT). Located in the
vicinity of Disney World, a short and scenic monorail ride away,
everything about it resembles the great fairs: the garden city plan; the
geodesic sphere in the center; the corporate and national pavilions. As
in many Disney-rides, the visitors roll past perfectly orchestrated
animatronic scenes in tiny cabs, an invention also brought forth by the
World Fairs.13

One of the major goals of the 42nd Street Development Project is to
continue to attract the 20 million tourists that visit the area each
year. For such as purpose, it seems all the more fitting that Disney
take part in the plan. Amusement parks have continued to draw tourists,
and Disney is the undisputed world leader. The current course of actions
seems to follow the City Beautiful movement of the early 20th century.
The Beaux-Arts architecture of the great fairs had been viewed as a
great improvement to the city and a strong attractor of tourists.
Similarly, it is now believed that the Disney-esque "architainment" can
bring new life to the city. As the Beaux-Arts architecture was a baroque
classicist style relying on imagery of the past, the Disney-esque
architainment, ironically, recycles the honky-tonk Times Square / Luna
Park baroque onto the area itself. Disneyland's famous Main Street
Electrical Parade can be seen as mobile version of the Great White Way.
Nightly, the entirely illuminated carriages and vehicles of the parade
roll past the parks' visitors at the same pace one could walk across
Times Square, creating a similar experience. Likewise, typical Disney
architecture is an eclectic mix of past, present and futuristic styles
mixed, jumbled and juxtaposed for maximum effect.

Shopping and entertainment have continued to grow closer to one another.
The turn-of-the-century department stores were the first to promote mass
consumerism in the form of shopping, as an entertaining activity. Early
in their existence, department stores had already discovered that a
theatrical presentation of goods could fascinate its customers. Scenery
window displays transformed ordinary goods into more desirable goods.14

Throughout the 20th century, and especially in the last three decades, the
lines between retailing and entertainment have become blurred. Sports
stores have simulators to test athletic skills (and products); music
stores offer video performance and sometime live concerts; restaurants
like Planet Hollywood and the Hard Rock Cafe are the museums of popular
culture, all turning the experience of shopping and eating into an
entertaining and cultural event. "Megamalls," such as the gigantic West
Edmonton Mall in Alberta, Canada have turned shopping into an
over-the-top entertainment experience. According to the Guinness Book of
Records, it is the largest shopping mall in the world. The complex holds
a number of other Guinness titles, such as the World's Largest Indoor
Amusement Park, World's Largest Indoor Water Park, and the World's
Largest Parking Lot. The mall also holds a full-size skating rink, 13
nightclubs, 20 movie theatres, and a 360-room hotel, aside from more
than 800 shops, 11 department stores and 110 restaurants. The mall's
developers intended to make sure that the shops would have plenty of
visitors, creating a complete, self-contained entertainment city. In
much the same way as Daniel Burnham predicted that his plans would
attract tourists (see page 4), one of the mall's developers shouted at
the opening, "What we have done means you don't have to go to New York
or Paris or Disneyland or Hawaii. We have it all here for you in one
place, in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada!"15 The combination of
'architainment' and retail seem to make a typical late 20th century
tourist draw. A massive shopping venue encased in merry architecture and
impregnated with entertainment are the city centers of tomorrow. It is
this set of images, in part derived from Times Square, that will be
re-imposed on the area itself.

Throughout its history, Times Square has been an exciting place. Despite
its degradation in the last third of the century, it continued to draw
millions of tourists each year. Entertainment businesses and theatres
remained in and around the area. As much as Times Square became known
for its adult shows and bookstores, it kept being known as a remarkable
entertainment district with a rich history and strong potential. Many
critics complain that the efforts of rebuilding Times Square are focused
on preserving myths and illusions, and emblematic characteristics. This
may well be, but one must not forget that Times Square was primarily
created and constantly altered by economic forces. One could argue that
Times Square is not just an entertainment district, it is an
entertainment business district. And as entertainers such as Thompson &
Dundy and Walt Disney have proved, entertainment is a good and
fast-moving business. It is only logical that they met at Times Square.

NOTES
11. Michael Sorkin, "See you in Disneyland," Variations on a Theme Park -
The New American City and The End of Public Space, Michael Sorkin,
editor, New York 1992, p.220, 223 12. "See you in Disneyland," p.208-212
13. "See you in Disneyland," p.212-216 14. Margeret Crawford, "The World
in a Shopping Mall," Variations on a Theme Park, p.14-17; William Wood
Register, Jr., "New York's Gigantic Toy," Inventing Times Square, p. 248
15. 42nd Street Now! Executive Summary, 1993; "The World in a Shopping
Mall," p.3-4 ; IMAGES: "Main Street Electrical Parade", postcard of Walt
Disney World, Orlando, Florida; "Future World", postcard of EPCOT
center, 1982